ONLINE SCAMS

Read the latest information about online scams and vunerable threats to you and others who use computers.

Don't be fooled by the online scammers who want nothing but your money, to destroy your credit and PC.

Pass it on: tech support scams

Earlier today, we announced a bunch of cases against tech support scammers: the people who act like there’s a problem with your computer and then try to convince you to fork over money to fix – ahem – “fix” it. Except there never was a problem, and they weren’t really from tech support. Make sure you know who your tech support is and you trust him or her 100%.

The FTC has been cracking down on deceptive tech support operations that call or send pop-ups to make people think their computers are infected with viruses. Scammers ask for access to computers, then charge people hundreds of dollars for unnecessary repairs.

The millions of people who reported scams last year told us that imposters were the top fraud of the year. Imposters have called many of us maybe even most of us, pretending to be anyone from the IRS to a family member in trouble, from fake tech “help” for your computer to a business selling things that turned out to be bogus. Their goal? To get your money as quickly as possible.

If you’ve ever gotten one of those calls, you know how alarming they can be. And that’s exactly what the scammers count on. They want you to act before you think – and acting always includes sending them money: by wiring it or by getting a prepaid card or gift card, and giving them the numbers on the card. Either way, your money’s gone.

We've all seen the pop-ups: "Your computer is infected! Get help now!"

If you've ever clicked through such an ad (really, a hijacking), you know that the price for freedom is $20 or $30 a month. At first, the ads were clunky and the threats idle. But now, many pop-ups are perfect replicas of windows you would see from Windows or an antivirus product. Some sites actually employ so-called ransomware, which disables your PC until you pay up or disinfect it with a strong antivirus product.

Facebook is no longer a Web site -- it's a full-fledged platform, rapidly approaching the scale of the Internet itself. Many young usersspend more time on Facebook than on e-mail, and actually use Facebook as their e-mail service. That means scammers are now crawling all over the service, since they always go where the people go.